


The Me I Am (When I’m With You)

by January Embers (MyHeartBurnsThereToo), MyHeartBurnsThereToo



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Danvers Sisters, F/F, Mutual Pining, oblivious idiots in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25962661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyHeartBurnsThereToo/pseuds/January%20Embers, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyHeartBurnsThereToo/pseuds/MyHeartBurnsThereToo
Summary: Kara finally works up the courage to tell Lena how she feels.Lena knows her family needed to pay for their crimes. She knows she owes the world a debt for the blood flowing through her veins. But making her listen to the woman she loves talk about how in love she is with someone else seems especially cruel.Or, Kara and Lena are both pining, oblivious idiots who need to learn how to properly communicate. And Alex Danvers is the best sister ever.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 35
Kudos: 212





	1. Chapter 1

It was different on Earth.

Not just the ritual of dating—the courting, the flowers, the kissing—but everything that went with it. On Krypton there was never any type of misconstruction, no need for second guessing or questioning. The Matricomp took care of that for them and the birthing matrix was how Kryptonians reproduced. It was all about social status, creating matches that would best serve Krypton and its inhabitants in the future. Love, or even basic attraction, was never considered. Matches were made solely focused on what would be best for Krypton.

But not here.

Here, it was movie dates and dinners and sweaty hand holding that made no sense to Kara, but she went along with anyway. Careful kisses—careful, so _careful_ —that also didn’t make sense but felt nice enough she supposed. It wasn’t unpleasant, at any rate. Just… weird.

And even now, all these years later, the nuances of it still escaped her.

“Does it ever confuse you?”

After Lena made a surprised sound in the back of her throat, Kara realized that maybe she should have led up to the question a bit better. It had slipped out unbidden in the comfortable atmosphere between the two of them, sitting together on Lena’s office couch long after most of the staff had gone home. Lena recovered quickly despite her abruptness, neck muscles flexing as she swallowed another mouthful of kale salad. Kara grimaced. “Does what ever confuse me?”

“Dating,” Kara smiled softly at the look of surprise Lena shot her over the top of her wineglass, resisting the sudden urge to wipe away the dressing she could see stuck at the corner of her lip. That was another puzzling development. Lena was beautiful, Kara wasn’t blind to that, but lately she had noticed it far more apparently—along with a swell of emotion she finally had a name for and certainly wasn’t _platonic_. “The details of it confuse me, still. Its like there’s some sort of elusive rulebook that exists and everyone’s read except for me.”

A pink tongue flicked out briefly a moment later, taking the bit of dressing with it. Kara tried not to mourn the lost opportunity.

There was a thoughtful expression on Lena’s face though, and Kara used the flimsy excuse to study her more closely than strictly appropriate. It wasn’t like she ogled her exactly, just… admired. Admired her pale complexion and the defined slope of her jaw bone, admired the way her green eyes were speckled with blue and gold and somehow always managed to look different. Their true color was a mystery, elusive even in the face of Kara’s persistent study.

“—though. Are you even listening?”

Sheepishly, Kara met Lena’s amused gaze with a soft puff of laughter. “Sorry, I'm sorry. Your eyes distracted me.” Lena’s heartbeat, usually calm and even, sped up inexplicably at her words. It raced, quickly, fluttering incessantly like the wings of a hummingbird and Kara frowned at the sound of it. “Are you okay? Your heart is beating like… really fast.”

“I'm fine,” Lena murmured calmly, incredibly calmly for someone who’s heartbeat had definitely sped up again at Kara’s question. She was serene though, on the outside. Eternally, unfailingly poised. “I suppose I never quite understood the concept of dating myself. It was always prearranged by my mother at first, to protect the family name and make sure I didn’t embarrass them. And then Jack—but there was no one really, after him.” Her voice had gone quiet, soft and vulnerable in a way Kara was only beginning to understand the significance of; how difficult it was for Lena to open up like this. _Trust_ like this. “Though I suppose that’s a good thing, with all the assassination attempts and whatnot. Probably wouldn’t bode well for a new relationship.”

Her attempt at levity fell flat between them, negated by Kara’s murmured, “ _Lena_.”

A pale hand waved dismissively, uncaring and unconcerned. “It’s fine, Kara. I've accepted at this point that more than a few people want me dead and are apparently shelling out a fair bit of money to make that happen. It’s fine— _flattering_ , even. But it’s not the point of this conversation, either. And not that you ever need a reason to ask me anything, but why the sudden interest in dating?”

“Lena, I will always protect you. I _promise_ ,” Kara said first, low and serious. A bit of Supergirl’s steel had bled into her voice and she knew that Lena had heard, based on the way her recently calmed heart rate picked up just the slightest bit again. With that fact stated… “I don’t know. On Krypton everything was so much easier, I didn’t have to worry about protocols or social cues or anything like that. There weren’t all these—feelings.” _The ones I have for you,_ Kara didn’t say.

The wineglass in Lena’s hand stilled halfway to her lips, suspended loosely between delicate fingers. “You have feelings for someone?” There was… _something_ … in her tone of voice, something that fizzled a bit like a warning on the back of Kara’s tongue. It was low and quiet, but still echoed strongly along the walls of her office.

_For you,_ is what Kara wanted to say. Would have said, if she had an ounce of Supergirl’s courage. But in what world, in what _universe_ , would Lena Luthor—CEO of two multibillion-dollar companies and renowned genius—settle for CatCo reporter Kara Danvers? The subtle intricacies of dating were lost on her, but Kara had enough of a grasp on it to understand the idea of leagues. And more importantly, just how far Lena was out of hers, Supergirl notwithstanding.

“I think so,” Kara managed finally, her voice coming out thicker and wavering with emotion. Truthfully, there was no _thinking_ about it. These feelings had hit her in one big and overwhelming wave of want, blinding her to anything that wasn’t the way Lena smiled with sparkling eyes and red painted lips. But that way lay madness, a path of longing and inevitable loneliness, so Kara forced those particular thoughts away, adjusting her glasses unnecessarily to buy herself a moment to calm down. The air between them was charged with something that wasn’t quite unfamiliar, but it was certainly stronger than it had ever been before. And that— _that_ —made exactly no sense to Kara. Friends talked about this kind of stuff, right? It was normal! All the movies she watched had shown her that much, at least. “But I don’t… they don’t like me. Like that.”

Shoot. _Shoot_. It was the last fleeting remnants of thoughts she’d pushed away, a reminder to check herself before she lost the very best friend she’d ever had. Kara hadn’t meant to say that last bit _out loud_ , but it was too late now, and Lena’s expression had gone from carefully blank to mildly curious in an instant. Their stares met and held for a long second, cracking with a kind of tension Kara was sure she’d never felt before. Almost never. It was prickly, sharp and zinging up her arms and down her spine—once, in an effort to just _feel_ something, she had taken to the skies in the middle of a thunderstorm. She was immune to its dangers after all, so she had flown right through the angry gray clouds and reveled in the way the lightning felt against her impenetrable skin. The thunder had been deafening, a boom of sound that left her ears ringing and memories of a dying Krypton playing on a loop in her mind.

Nightmares for weeks on end had followed, spiderweb cracks along a blazing red sky.

But she had _felt_ something.

It had scared Eliza terribly though, her worried eyes haunting Kara for weeks. So, she had promised to never do it again. And she had kept that promise! Even when her skin started to itch at every flash of lightning, something shivery and anticipatory swirling in the depths of her stomach.

That was what she felt now, the prickle of electricity coursing throughout her body, thrumming low and hot and expectant. Jade eyes that flashed with something much more captivating and illuminating than lightning, deeper and more disorienting than thunder. Lena Luther wasn’t a storm; she was a _hurricane_. A force of nature all on her own, wrapped in designer clothes and killer heels.

_Rao,_ Kara had it bad.

Finally, Lena looked away and broke their moment with a soft clearing of her throat. “I find that really hard to believe. Anyone would count themselves lucky to be on the receiving end of your attention.” Her words were spoken very softly, directed somewhere over her shoulder as green eyes deliberately avoided eye contact.

And that was—

That was a sign, wasn’t it? Alex so loved to tease her for being oblivious but _that_ was—could Lena maybe… It was a sign! Maybe. It was maybe a sign that Lena had a fraction of the feelings Kara had, an inkling of that same shivery excitement whenever they were due to spend time together, a smidge of that hopeless yearning that had her inner thoughts waxing poetic about the most beautiful pair of eyes she had ever seen. It was more hope than she had ever had before, and Kara grabbed onto it like a lifeline.

“S-So about the person I have those feelings for? I just… they're so great, Lena.” Kara took in a deep breath that shuddered, taking a few moments to calm herself down. The walls of Lena’s white office had been painted a muted orange by the setting sun, the soft tone of it making the space feel intimate. Romantic, even. Kara tried to draw comfort from that. “I don’t know exactly when I started to feel this way. Looking back, it seems kind of inevitable—”

Abruptly Lena stood, effectively cutting her off. There was a flash of something in her eyes that made Kara’s stomach curl, an echo of pain shooting through her hearts as tears gathering prematurely in her eyes. It was a bad look. A very _bad_ look. “I'm terribly sorry, Kara. I just remembered I have a conference call soon with an overseas shareholder and I still haven’t finished going over the R&D reports I left in my home office. I hate to have to rush off like this but…” She trailed off expectantly, like she was going off of some sort of mental script that Kara was supposed to have a copy of. Her voice was cool and detached in a way Kara had only heard in boardroom meetings with entitled white men, emotionless and blunt.

Kara blinked in shock at the sound of it, swallowing thickly against the expected well of emotion. She would not break down. Not _here_. “Oh yeah. No i-it’s no problem Lena, really. You go and do your thing, I’ll just—” She made a vague gesture that she really hoped indicated her intention of flying off the balcony because meeting Lena’s eyes right now was _so_ not an option. It hadn’t been a sign. It most definitely had not been a sign and she had made Lena uncomfortable with her unrequited, _stupid_ feelings and now she was having to fake a conference call just to get away.

“Kara I…” Lena trailed off a bit helplessly, that steely mask she had so firmly adopted now well and gone. Now… now Lena just looked conflicted. Uncomfortable.

Kara felt her stomach turn unpleasantly—so _this_ is what it meant to feel sick.

“Its fine, Lena. I know that you're super busy with work and stuff, don’t worry about it.” Rising from her position with a strained laugh, one that she desperately hoped didn’t sound as fake as it felt, Kara made her way over to the balcony and changed into her suit in a matter of seconds. “Text me when you get home? Good luck with your calls!”

She took off before Lena had a chance to respond.

* * *

Lena was a terrible friend.

Arguably, she hadn’t had much practice, even going to an all-female boarding school. The girls there hadn’t taught her how to be a friend, they had taught her how to adapt. Shape shift and morph herself into whatever the situation called for, use people like her pawns before they could do the same to her. They made her cunning and calculated and firmly exiled what was left of that scared four-year-old girl, desperately clutching a worn teddy bear to her heaving chest.

And then there had been Jack. Then Sam.

She had fumbled with them at first, unsure how to respond to their cautious advances. The genuineness of their acceptance was alien to her, foreign in a way she still couldn’t understand. She flinched when she should have relaxed, closed up when she should have been open, walked away when she should have stayed. So yes, she fumbled.

But she was _learning_.

Which is why it was the only area of her life where she cut herself some slack. The pressure to be perfect—perfect scores, perfect outfit, perfect CEO, perfect _Luthor_ —had been so far ingrained that it was merged with her DNA code. She didn’t know how to exist without striving for perfection in every facet of her life. Excellency hadn’t been expected of her; it had been demanded. And failure to meet those expectations had resulted in cool gazes and _I know you are not one of us but if you could at least try to uphold our standards, Lena_ or _Honestly, did you even bother to open your textbook this semester? This is pitiful._ Lillian had made sure to criticize her at every point she could manage, in as many aspects of her life as possible.

It became a game of sorts, a way to disassociate for the constant ache that had made itself a home in the deepest part of her heart—Lex had been a champion chess player. Lena beat him at the age of eight and became a national chess prodigy. Lex graduated high school at the age of sixteen. Lena graduated at fifteen. Lex ran LuthorCorp into the ground. Lena drug it up by the scruff of its neck, making L Corp a well-known global corporation—but it was never enough.

_She_ was never enough. 

Friendship was the one area in her life where she hadn’t demanded perfection, had been okay with the fact that she made mistakes sometimes. And then Kara Danvers had waltzed into her life, bumbling and blushing with her glasses and her cardigans and Lena’s cold, empty heart gave an unexpected quiver. She wasn’t a stranger to falling for a pretty face, but her reactions had never been _this_ extreme before.

The first sign was the flowers. A whimsical expense to her, but never in her life had she ever bought a bouquet—much less cleaned out a whole flower shop. And then there was the unlimited access to her office and by proxy… Lena. That had been the one that made Jess raise a single eyebrow, the closest thing the other woman would make to a statement, before she nodded and murmured a _Yes, Miss Luthor._ But still, both of those instances could be—arguably—considered acts of friendship. Exceptionally good friends, _best_ friends, but friends none the less.

However, somewhere around signing the last of the papers for CatCo, Lena realized that she _maybe_ had a problem.

Kara was warm and loving, her eyes were always bright and filled with life despite everything that she had gone through. The sight of those mesmerizing blue eyes, dull and empty, gleaming with a painful sort of melancholy—a clear loss of hope—had made her heart absolutely _ache_. Every thought and idea in the never-ending parade of her mind had ground to an immediate halt; there was no L Corp, no investors, no overseas meetings or R&D checkups. Just Kara and her sad eyes. Lena had sworn then and there that whatever the problem was, she would damn well fix it. Nothing was impossible if the price was right after all, and she certainly wasn’t hurting for funds. Besides, what was 750 million dollars between friends?

And it was there, sitting in the midst of various contracts and documents on a company she had no idea how to actually run, that Lena realized she was fucked. Royally so. The kind of fucked that came from falling in love with her beautiful, kind and painfully straight best friend. Who also happened to be a literal superhero. That her maniacal, genocidal family was obsessed with killing.

The first few nights after her new found feelings had fully surfaced were spent in a fear-induced panic. What if Kara found out and cut her off? She had been unfailingly loyal despite of the whole Super and Luthor feud, but what if this was the final straw? Life before Kara had been an endless cycle of paperwork and meetings and even more paperwork before she finally went home for a few hours of sleep and then started all over again. If Kara found out that Lena had feelings for her, she would leave, and Lena would go back to the empty life she had before Kara Danvers and her sunshine smiles.

Ultimately, that fear is what made it easier to hide said feelings. Not _easy_ —Lena quickly found out just how often she got lost in Kara’s eyes—but she was managing. Quite well if she did say so herself.

Up until a few moments ago, at least.

“S-So about the person I have those feelings for? I just… they're so great, Lena.”

Something unpleasant twisted hot and sharp in the pit of her stomach. Bile burned steadily at the back of her throat and as a telltale heat prickled at the back of her eyes. She was going to cry. She was going to cry, and her stomach wouldn’t stop twisting itself into knots that kept getting impossibly tighter and Kara wouldn’t stop talking about this fucking mystery person that had so thoroughly captured her heart in a way Lena never would.

Lena decided she would quite like to meet them.

She couldn’t imagine how satisfying it would feel to put her fist to their underserving face.

“—exactly when I started to feel this way. Looking back, it seems kind of inevitable—”

Enough. That was enough. Lena was not, nor had she ever claimed to be, a martyr. She didn’t have to _take_ this. The long-practiced words flew out of her mouth with little ceremony, it was an age-old excuse after all. Just not one that she had ever used on _Kara_. Sweet, innocent Kara who had been rambling on with flushed cheeks and bright eyes about a significant crush that she just wanted to talk about.

Blue eyes regarded her in shock and a fair amount of hurt. The adorable pink flush that had been on her cheeks darkened in what was clearly embarrassment and Lena felt her heart trip with the first stirrings of guilt. “Oh yeah. No i-it’s no problem Lena, really. You go and do your thing, I’ll just—” She made a short motion towards the balcony with her hand, very tellingly not meeting Lena’s eyes.

Fuck. She was a terrible friend. Not a martyr maybe, but that didn’t mean she had to be an asshole either. Especially not to the person that meant more than anything to her. “Kara I—” She what, exactly? She was sorry? She wanted to know every part of the reporter’s life and interests _except_ for who she had a crush on? There really was no good way to finish that sentence. Not one that didn’t raise a whole bunch of questions she would rather avoid, that is.

“Its fine, Lena. I know that you're super busy with work and stuff, don’t worry about it.” Kara rose quickly and gracelessly, almost stumbling in her haste to get up and put some distance between them, a scratchy sound leaving her throat that Lena assumed was supposed to be a laugh.

She winced and reached out to her friend, meaning to backtrack, but with a flurry of movement and a blast of cold air, Kara was gone. After staring blankly at her balcony for a solid thirty seconds Lena sighed and stood to grab her purse, noticing that Kara had taken their trash and dishes with her despite the abrupt departure. Because of course she had.

Kara was perfect like that. She deserved the world but at the very least she deserved a best friend who wouldn’t outright lie to her face because they were throwing a mini temper tantrum over some unrequited feelings. It had been childish of her, incredibly immature for a woman of her position and overwhelmingly rude.

Resolving to be better in the future, Lena made her way out of the office with new ideas bustling in her head. Perhaps tomorrow—after delivering a few dozen donuts and an extraordinarily deserved apology—Lena could convince Kara to give her the name of this mysterious crush. And if it turned out that the reporter was right and this person didn’t have feelings for her, well Lena could go on for hours and hours about all the reasons to love Kara Danvers without so much as hinting at the woman’s secret identity. Whoever they were would know how lucky they were, how unbelievably blessed they must be to receive a gift like Kara’s love.

Lena would give anything and everything for a chance at _earning_ that love. This person was the most fortunate soul in the entire multiverse, and they would damn well know it. And Lena would help! She had a few connections in Paris, she might be able to set something up for the two of them. Her private jet and drivers could provide transportation, not to mention privacy. The thought of Kara in anyone’s arms that weren’t her own made Lena queasy, but she planned on.

She would do everything in her considerable power to make Kara happy, even if it meant pushing down her own feelings and watching as the love of her life made a home for herself in someone else’s heart. That steady resolve and determination carried her through a mostly sleepless night and by early the next morning Lena was ready to start executing her plan when a timid Jess called out to her.

“I just wanted to know if Miss Danvers managed to catch you yesterday evening, since you had me leave a little early?”

A little early. It had been nearly sunset when Lena had come out of her office to see her assistant still hard at work, a phone receiver cradled between her ear and shoulder while deft fingers flew over a keyboard as she effortlessly carried on a conversation. In French. It was a scene that reminded her how lucky she was to have Jess as an assistant. The both of them had been in the office at four that morning due to an unexpected R&D disaster, and there was no reason for the other woman to suffer when she didn’t have to. Besides, Kara had—

Kara had come in through her balcony. She wouldn’t have had to…

“Jess?” Her stomach twisted suddenly, a sense of panic rising in her. “How did you know Kara wanted to see me?”

Her assistant stared at her in confusion for a moment before her face cleared and she exhaled something that sounded like a laugh. Or might have been a laugh. Lena was having a hard time hearing past the blood rushing in her ears. “She stopped by yesterday afternoon and wanted to make sure that your schedule was clear of anything important. I let her know that you were free for the rest of the day and early this morning.”

The world tilted swiftly and sharply as Lena sat heavily in her chair.

It explained the way Kara had looked at her in shock, the way her eyes had welled with tears that Lena had refused to let herself see. She had been hurt because she had checked with Jess beforehand, which meant that when Lena had made the comment about the overseas call and early morning meeting…

She had known it was a lie.

_Kara_ had known that it was a lie. That Lena was lying to her.

“ _Fuck_.”

* * *

Kara wasn’t moping.

Just because she hadn’t left her apartment in a while—with the exception of Supergirl duties of course—and taken a few sick days from work did not mean that she was moping. But her bathrobe was getting a little worse for wear. And she had run out of ice cream yesterday and maybe Netflix was being a little overly judgmental by constantly asking her _Are you still watching?_ but this was her right! She had a right to take a few days to mourn the fact that the woman of her dreams wanted absolutely nothing to do with her romantically. 

She was eternally grateful for Lena’s friendship. In fact, she thanked Rao every day that the other woman was such a huge part of her life and that she had taken the Supergirl reveal as well as she did. But there was an itch under her skin, a desire to smear that perfectly applied lipstick with her own lips and hold the other woman as close as she could. Hold her, kiss her, wrap her in half a dozen blankets and cuddle her until Lena knew exactly how loved she was. How she could have any part of Kara she wanted—how she already had _every_ part of her.

Not that it would happen. If Lena’s reaction to Kara trying to confess her feelings hadn’t been enough of an answer, the days of radio silence that followed sure as heck were.

So, maybe she was moping a little, but it was either that or panic because she might have ruined the best friendship she had ever had. No one _got_ her like Lena. They could communicate without really saying anything and she knew exactly what kind of day it was going to be based on the way Lena wore her hair and the position she sat in. It had never been so easy with anyone else and Kara had to go and ruin it by opening her big mouth. Everything would have been fine if—

“Kara?”

Honestly, she should’ve expected it. Had expected it. There were only so many times that her sister would let her get away with texting _I’m fine_ in response to a surprisingly gentle line of questioning. The first sick day she’d opted to take after the disaster at Lena’s office, Alex had shown up at her apartment ten minuets later looking frazzled and mildly panicked. It had taken Kara a solid hour to explain that she was fine, nothing had happened, she just needed a break. She wasn’t fine of course, and something had most definitely happened, but a break was very much needed.

“I have a key, you know. This is me trying to be courteous and respect your request for space while also upholding my duty as your sister and checking up on you.” There was a slight pause and Kara didn’t need her x-ray vision to know that Alex was frowning at her on the other side of the door. “Come on Kara, please. It’s been days, you're going to have to talk to me about what’s going on eventually… I brought pot stickers.”

Conceding defeat, Kara let out a sigh. Alex wasn’t going to let this go. She knew that. And while part of her was annoyed at the other woman’s refusal to let her be, most of her really needed her big sister. Really, _really_ needed her big sister. “Come in.”

Less than a second later her apartment door was opening, and Kara watched as Alex’s face scanned briefly through the space before landing on Kara herself. There were take out containers scattered haphazardly throughout the living room, the dishes she had accumulated sat unwashed in the sink and the second their gazes locked, Kara felt the tears she had been fighting off spring to her eyes and burn twin paths of fire down her cheeks. “Oh honey…”

That was all it took.

Something inside of her snapped. A coil of emotion that she had let wind tighter and tighter with every day, memories that she had desperately attempted to blur. Feelings she had refused to acknowledge again. The first sob was loud and sharp, guttural and coming from somewhere deep inside of her. By the time the second sob surfaced, Alex had crossed the slight distance between them to drag a willing and pliant Kara into her arms. It felt good. The release was cathartic in a way days of avoidance hadn’t been and Kara lost track of time as she cried into the crook of her sister’s neck, hardly hearing the woman’s mumbled assurances over the sounds of her own crying.

Afterwards, she felt drained. Limp and exhausted, too tired to put up a fight as Alex guided her through the apartment and into the bathroom, only leaving to start the shower and grab a fresh pair of clothes for her to change into. Obeying the wordless request, Kara dutifully stripped and stepped under the hot water, letting out a sigh of contentment at the rivers of heat that ran down her skin.

If crying her eyes out had been a release, then the shower was a reprieve. For a long time, there was only Kara and the sound of the water. She washed her hair slowly and meticulously, scrubbing harder at her scalp anytime green eyes or pale skin tried to invade her thoughts. Focusing her hearing let her know that Alex was, of course, still in her apartment. But her heartbeat was calm and steady, her breathing even and soft, and Kara did her level best to match it. When the water started to run a bit cooler, losing the delicious heat, she stepped out and swallowed thickly at the sight of the pajamas waiting innocently on her bathroom counter. They were her favorite comfort ones, a loose pair of soft gray sweatpants and a shirt that had been worn to perfect softness. And they were warm, like Alex had just pulled them out of the dryer knowing Kara was almost ready to get out.

The thought made her smile.

A smile that stayed when she walked into her living room and saw that the evidence of her mild meltdown was gone. All the containers had been thrown away, the counters wiped down and dishes washed. Her window was open to air the place out and Alex was sitting cross legged on the couch, a plate of pot stickers on the coffee table in front of her and a gentle, but expectant, look on her face. Meekly, Kara walked over and settled herself against her sister’s side, grabbing a pot sticker and cuddling close.

For a few long moments, there was a comfortable silence between them. Alex ran her fingers through Kara’s hair, combing it gently, while the blonde ate slowly and relished in the easy comfort her sister provided. “Talk to me.”

Kara sighed, debating where exactly she should start. “Relationships on Krypton were a lot different than they are here,” she murmured finally, nuzzling into Alex’s hand when the soft strokes faltered. She needed the grounding, the comfort of it, if she was going to get through this. There was already a familiar thickness at the back of her throat. “There were no feelings involved, not really. S-So when I started to get them for someone I kind of—” Freaked out. She had freaked the hell out. It was an ordinary Tuesday, having a pre-planned lunch date with Lena in her office and suddenly it had been hard to breathe. For a moment, a second, Kara had genuinely thought she might have been dying. What else could explain the way her heart had literally give a _tug_ at the sight of Lena Luthor’s _real_ smile? Admittedly, it wasn’t a sight she had enough experience with, but her reactions had never been like _that_. Warmth? Sure. Fondness? Absolutely. A painful sort of ache in her heart that felt like destiny and tasted like inevitability? Nope. Never. “Didn’t handle it the best.”

Alex hummed a soft, soothing sound in the back of her throat. Kara could feel the vibration of it against her cheek from where she had her face pressed against her sister’s neck. “So, you have feelings for someone?”

Feelings no longer felt like a strong enough word.

Feelings were what she’d had for James. The warmth in her heart, a sort of longing tugging her towards him in a practiced, easy dance for two. She had loved him, but they had ultimately worked better as friends. Mon-El was different. That had been a slow build, her attraction to him almost solely based on the fact that she couldn’t hurt him. There was a fondness for him, a sort of kinship to his plight. Last of his kind, stranded on an unfamiliar world surrounded by unfamiliar people. She had loved him and losing him had hurt in ways she’d never felt before, but it had taken Kara a long time to realize that she missed the _idea_ of him more than the man himself. She missed being able to hug someone as tight as she wanted, being able to hold a hand without worrying about breaking fingers. She missed being held and _feeling_ it. She thought she’d been in love.

She thought she knew what love, honest to Rao _love_ , was.

And then there had been that one inexplicably ordinary lunch with Lena and Kara had realized, with a stunning and violent sort of clarity, that she hadn’t had the first clue about love back then.

Every part of her _burned_ in Lena’s presence. Like each of her was made up of a sun all on their own and when those green eyes met hers, Kara was alight. It was a head rush of unconceivable proportions, a high that even flying couldn’t touch. It was lightning on her skin and thunder in her veins, flying through a storm at full speed. It was addicting.

It was _love_.

It was love because Kara was in love and it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. None of it mattered because Lena didn’t feel the same way, didn’t care like Kara did. Didn’t ache the way Kara ached. Didn’t love the way Kara loved. “Yeah, I do.” Kara answered after a long stretch of silence, blinking out of her thoughts and not bothering to wipe away the tears that spilled over. There was no point in it now. “I do and she—”

“Woah, woah,” Alex cut in suddenly, sharply. Kara felt the way her sister moved and glanced upwards, meeting wide and confused brown eyes. She frowned at the hurt she saw there, lingering in the background. “She? You have feelings for a woman?”

“Yeah, why?”

Alex gaped. “Why? _Why_? Why didn’t you tell me that you were interested in women, Kara? I didn’t even know that—”

“Why does it matter?” Kara asked, cutting Alex off this time. Her voice was sharper than she had meant for it to be, but it couldn’t be helped. Not now. Not when the tears were back with a fierce sort of vengeance, burning her eyes and the back of her throat. She couldn’t even see past the blur in her eyes. “On Krypton things like gender didn’t matter and I've never felt it like this before. I've always found women beautiful, but I've never wanted _anyone_ the way I want her and I'm sorry I didn’t tell you, but it never came up and—”

“Hey, hey, its okay.” The hand that had fallen still in her hair resumed its steady motions, pulling Kara to once again lay her head on the comfortable spot she had found on Alex’s shoulder. “You’re right, you're so right and I'm sorry. Even if you hadn’t been right, now wasn’t a good time to talk about it. I'm sorry. It’s going to be okay.” Alex scratched at her scalp for a while, letting the flood of tears pass again before she cleared her throat gently. Kara braced herself for the question she knew was coming. “So… who is it?”

“Lena.” Some part of her distantly wondered if she should’ve dodged the question for a bit, tried to change the topic or stall for time. But she was exhausted after two good sessions of crying and her heart was broken wide open in a way she had never felt before. She didn’t have the energy to evade or deflect. Alex tensed up against her and Kara sighed, exhaling lowly. “Alex, don’t. Seriously. I already know what you're going to say, and I don’t want to hear it. Not ever, but certainly not right now. She's not her family.”

For long seconds the only sound was her sister’s slightly elevated heartbeat and their gentle breathing. After a few more seconds, some of the tension leaked from Alex’s form with a quiet sigh of her own. “Okay, you're right. Again. I'm sorry.” Kara looked up to see Alex thinking, clearly debating something. After a brief deliberation, she spoke again. Slowly, carefully. “Is that what caused this? You realizing you had feelings for Lena?”

And just like that, all of the heartache flooded to the forefront of her mind again, overwhelming and hot and _painful_.

“No, this is because Lena doesn’t feel the same way.” She could feel Alex getting ready to retort, to protest, so Kara kept talking before she could. “I went to tell her. A few days ago. Well—we were having dinner at her office and I thought that—she made it seem like maybe she had some feelings for me. Or I thought that she did. So, I went and started to tell her about mine and she cut me off—” Her voice broke, and Kara huffed out an annoyed breath, wiping uselessly at her eyes. At this point, it felt like she might never stop crying. “Lied about some meeting or another, I don’t remember. I just had to get out of there before I broke down completely.”

Alex made a thoughtful sound. “How do you know that she was lying?”

“I had already checked with her assistant Jess. I wasn’t trying to stalk her or anything, just wanted to make sure that we weren’t going to stay at the office too late if she had an early morning meeting. Or if there was a certain time she would need me to leave by. I just wanted to be prepared.” Kara let her eyes close, swallowing thickly when she remembered the look on Lena’s beautiful face. The look of shock and horror. Of disgust. “You should’ve seen the way she looked at me Alex, l-like I had o-offended her by daring to l-love her.”

“I'm sure that’s not true—”

“She was disgusted, Alex. Disgusted.” Kara whimpered, hiding her face more securely as sobs racked her body. “R-Rao I've never felt so small in my life, I _swear_. It was like a part of me died in that office and I don’t know how I'm supposed to face her. I've been giving her time but she's not reaching out. I-I can’t lose her, Alex. I-I can’t—I _can’t_ —”

The rest of her words were lost to sobs, heaving sobs that stole her breath and hurt her throat. Through it all, Alex kept a tight grip on her, murmuring an endless stream of comfort and soft words as Kara cried and cried until sleep finally took her and her mind went blissfully blank.


	2. Chapter 2

Everyone had left hours ago.

Jess had finally given up on her attempt to gently, professionally herd Lena out from the office. She knew her assistant was worried, saw the slight crease between her brows when Lena told her she’d be staying for a bit longer. And because Jess was one of the most loyal assistants she’d ever had, the woman had immediately dropped her bag and made her way back to her desk, insisting on staying despite the fact that it was nearly midnight. It had taken a surprising amount of coaxing to make her relent and go home.

The silence used to be nice. Used to be time where she could let go of the last vestiges of Lena Luthor, CEO and be just Lena. And while her thoughts had never been particularly happy, they were _hers_. Not her mothers or her brothers or Mr. Davidson from the board who insisted that Lena needed help making decisions for her company.

So, the silence used to be nice, even if it wasn’t particularly happy.

That was before she’d fucked everything up.

Now, the silence was a reminder that she hadn’t heard from Kara in three days. When Jess had unintentionally revealed that Kara knew she had lied to her best friend, Lena’s heart had nearly stopped. The panic that had swiftly followed had been almost paralyzing and she had been seconds away from calling the reporter up and apologizing before realizing that the best thing she could do was wait. Wait until Kara was ready to talk to her, ready to hear her out.

It was nearing the end of day four of no contact and Lena was trying not to overreact. Trying to stay calm. But her hands were shaking slightly and her heart—the thing that had gotten her into this mess in the first place—was a tangled web of pain and longing and guilt. She should’ve bit her tongue and listened, should’ve endured the heartbreak with a smile because that would’ve been better than this. _Anything_ would’ve been better than this.

Cursing lowly, Lena reached for her glass of Scotch and took another long sip, relishing the burn of the alcohol as it slid down her throat. She still had a few proposals from R&D to go over, papers to sign from her latest acquisition and speeches to write for her upcoming press conference. None of that would be happening tonight. Between Kara’s silence, her own twisted combination of guilt and longing, and the alcohol flowing through her system—work was done for the night.

With a sigh, Lena went to grab her purse when a muffled sound reached her ears. Pausing, she waited, heartbeat steadily increasing until—

The door to her office opened suddenly and violently, the resounding _thump_ making Lena jump slightly as a furious Alex Danvers stormed in. The woman’s face was tight with some dark emotion, her lips pinched flat and turned downward in a clear expression of displeasure. _Anger._

Lena swallowed, feeling a sense of apprehension creep up her spine. “Alex—”

“Where do you get off?” Alex spat out, teeth grinding together in her fury. There was something wild in her eyes, a palpable kind of rage radiating off of her form that Lena found herself reacting to.

Her spine straightened immediately, her chest puffing out slightly as she held her chin up high. This was something she was used to. A vitriol reaction where she was concerned and though it had been a while since Alex had treated her to this particular show of anger and mistrust, Lena was used to it. “Stop shouting. Sit down and we can talk or leave, but I won’t be shouted at as if I've done something wrong.” Not by this Danvers sister, at least. If Kara wanted to barge into her office shouting, Lena would do nothing but listen with grateful, attentive ears.

At least then Kara would be _talking_ to her.

Alex didn’t react though, didn’t cower or stand down in the slightest. If anything, her anger got sharper. Deeper. “I know you and I have never truly seen eye to eye Luthor, but I really thought you at least cared about Kara.”

At that, any righteous fury she may have had melted away. The taste of fear was thick and cloying on the back of her tongue, a sick sense of dread making her dizzy as her heart started to pound in her chest. “What about Kara? What happened to Kara?” The possibilities were endless, given her penchant for trouble at both jobs but if something truly major had happened to the blonde, Lena highly doubted Alex would stop by L Corp. She tried to draw comfort from that as her heart pounded away.

Instead of answering, the older Danvers scoffed in a way that made Lena’s blood boil, adding an aggravated huff for good measure. “Like you don’t know. I just wanted to tell you how badly you hurt her with your bullshit. That was majorly fucked up and you know it, Luthor.”

Oh. The guilt that she had already been doing a rather poor job of managing burst free from its designated box and rose up to choke her in the feeling. Tears that she absolutely refused to shed in front of Alex sprang to her eyes and she blinked them away immediately, slowly lowering herself back into her chair. “So, Kara told you what happened, then?”

“More like I had to ambush her at her apartment and threaten to break in but sure. She told me.” There was a seething anger in Alex’s voice that Lena didn’t understand. She had hurt Kara; she knew as much before Alex told her. The thought of it made her feel physically ill, made her head swim and guilt wrap around her heart in a vice like grip. But still, it didn’t seem like she deserved this drastic of a reaction. Not from _Alex_ at least. 

“I'm sorry. I know that I messed up, and I know that I reacted quite poorly, but I was caught off guard. Please assure your sister that I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings because you're right. I do care a great deal about Kara and hurting her is the absolute last thing I would ever want to do.” There. It was sincere, bordering on too emotional in Lena’s opinion, but it was real. And more importantly, it was _honest_. Something she hadn’t been that night.

Alex, however, didn’t seem to agree. The tips of her ears became an alarming shade of red, and her face got even harder. In fact, her whole body was vibrating with pure, unadulterated fury and Lena felt more confused than ever. “You _reacted poorly? Really?_ That’s all you have to say? How about you reacted _abysmally_ and broke her fucking heart?”

The thought of Kara with a broken heart hit a little too close to home and Lena had to close her eyes, taking a deep breath to keep herself from falling apart. Her own heart was doing its absolute best to bruise the chest that held it and Lena pressed a hand against the offending organ, absently hoping the counter pressure would do something to help slow down her racing pulse. “Alex,” she started, very deliberately, very calmly. “What exactly did Kara tell you happened between us?”

“Don’t play games with me, Luth—”

“Does it look like I'm playing a game, Alex?” Lena snapped back, once again standing and making her way over to the other woman. The older Danvers was glaring and for once, Lena let herself glare right back. “I know I hurt her that night, okay? I know. I saw the tears and I felt bad and wanted to fix it, but she left. I hurt her,” Lena repeated in a whisper, biting at the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. “I hurt her, but I don’t understand why you're reacting like this. I didn’t—it wasn’t like… I feel like I'm missing something, and I don’t understand _what._ So please, what did she say happened that night?”

Alex gave her a long, searching look. It was the kind of look Lena could physically _feel,_ the kind of look that sent phantom touches to every place her calculating eyes met until she felt like she was crawling inside her own skin. Finally, the other woman seemed to find whatever the hell she had been looking for so intently, because some of the abject hatred left her eyes. “She told me that the two of you met for dinner in your office and that she tried to tell you something.” 

Lena nodded slowly, swallowing thickly at the memory. “Right, yes. Her feelings.”

Brown eyes narrowed in accusation, some of the anger flaring back up again. “Not just feelings, Lena. I won’t disrespect her by telling you exactly what she said but she is definitely way past _feelings_ at this point.”

That statement lodged itself somewhere in the middle of her throat, heavy and thick like a boulder. Way past feelings. Did that mean love? Kara was _in love_ with this person? The urge to cry was back and there was no way in hell that Lena was about to let herself break down in front of Alex Danvers of all people, which meant this impromptu meeting needed to end. Now. “Then I guess its just me. I shouldn’t have lied like I did, and I do deeply regret it, but I still fail to see why you would react like this. Nevertheless, I hear you Agent Danvers. And I am truly, unbelievably sorry I hurt Kara’s feelings.”

“You _still_ don’t understand?” Alex took a step back, looking at Lena like she had never seen her before. There was a clear incredulity in the other woman’s eyes, a sense of deep confusion and hurt under the overwhelming amount of anger. “You know, I had to learn how to trust you with Supergirl, but I never really worried about you with Kara. It was clear that you cared about her but now… she cried herself to sleep in my arms, Lena. And you don’t seem to care much at all.”

“Cried herself to—what the _fuck_ is going on?” Lena felt something like hysteria rising in her, a shrill note entering her voice because nothing was making sense. Had Lena not wanting to listen to Kara talk about her crush really led to the reporter crying herself to sleep? It seemed extreme. And she felt guilty, overwhelmingly so, but mostly right now she felt confusion. Somehow, somewhere, she had _clearly_ missed something.

Alex shook her head, her jaw locked, and expression closed off. Cold. “Whatever Lena. Spin it however you want to spin it. If you're capable of something like this, then I guess none of us really knew you at all.” The agent spun on her heel like she was going to storm off before making a full circle and facing Lena again. “You could’ve been kinder about it. So, you don’t return her feelings, that doesn’t give you the right to break her heart like that and then ignore her for days. That is a messed-up thing to do to anyone, let alone to _Kara_.”

“Return her—” It was like a lightbulb of the worst kind. A sudden, terribly sense of clarity that made the hot guilt bubbling low in her stomach erupt in cold waves of abject horror and nausea. Alex’s icy, angry hatred. Kara apparently crying herself to sleep. It was everything she had ever wanted, and she fucked it up before it even had a chance to start. And to make matters worse, so _so_ much worse, she had broken the one heart she had silently promised to protect. “Kara’s crush. The person she has all of these feelings for. Its _me?_ ”

She wasn’t sure what did it. Maybe it was the horror in her tone. Maybe it was the way that her face had most definitely gone pale. Either way, Alex went from looking downright murderous to confused in a second. The world was spinning again, and Lena felt her stomach drop at the sight of the other woman’s careful, deliberate nod.

_Way past feelings at this point,_ Alex had said.

_Cried herself to sleep,_ Alex had said.

“She said—” Alex blinked, clearly thrown off. “She said that you looked at her in disgust. Like you were mad at her for daring to love you.”

And there it was. The final nail in her coffin.

Love.

Kara loved her and Lena had thrown it back in her face without even realizing it. When she lied about the meetings and made excuses to get out of the conversation, the blonde must have thought that Lena didn’t want to hear her confession. The pain and tears made so much more sense now. Because she had been trying to be brave and come forward and Lena had been jealous of herself the entire fucking time and now Kara—

_She said that you looked at her in disgust._

Fuck.

No, no, no, no, no. She hadn’t!

She had. The thought of Kara with anyone that wasn’t Lena had most definitely made Lena’s face contort with something that might very well have been disgust. Or maybe jealousy. Pain. Anger. Heartbreak. All because—

“ _Fuck,_ ” she choked out, whimpered.

And then ran.

She made it exactly five steps before a shocked Alex caught her about the middle and held her still. Lena fought back, uselessly, before she resorted to begging. She had unintentionally broken the love of her life’s heart in a fit of petty and useless jealousy and Lena _had_ to make it right. Pride and decorum were both nonexistent at this point. “Alex, please! I didn’t know, okay? I didn’t know! She didn’t tell me it was me and I broke her heart when her heart is the only thing I've ever really wanted so please! Please, please, _please_ let me fix this. I'm so in love with her Alex, I swear.”

“Easy Lena,” Alex murmured gently, softly. Her voice was warm and kind, a complete turn around from what it had been a mere ten minutes ago and Lena obeyed her quiet demand. The arm wrapped around her waist dropped, but a hand on her forearm kept them connected. “That’s it, that’s _good,_ Lena. Just breathe.” 

“Please Alex,” she choked out again, tugging at the hand still holding her arm in a loose grip.

Instead of releasing her, Alex gently spun Lena around until they were face to face. Her expression was once again searching, but the majority of the fire had drained out of it. Now she mostly looked tired. “First of all, I'm sorry. If I had known that you _didn’t_ know, I wouldn’t have said half of the shit I did. Second, Kara was in pretty bad shape when I left her apartment. It was clear that she hadn’t really left the place unless she had to and also that she was having a hard time sleeping. It happens sometimes when she's really upset. Her ability to control her hearing especially kind of—falters. She loses control of it which makes it hard for her to fall asleep.” That gentle look didn’t change in the slightest, but some steel crept into the red head’s voice when she continued. “I know you need to talk to her Lena; I get it. Hell, I really want you to. And you can. First thing tomorrow morning. Because right now what Kara needs is sleep.”

Lena nodded in agreement, even as her heart gave a shudder at the thought of Kara in pain for a second longer. Pain that _Lena_ had caused.

_Soon, my love._ Lena thought, _soon._

* * *

It had been a bad few days.

A bad few days on top of what had undoubtably been a horrible handful of days and Kara was tired _._ When Barry had shown up out of the blue in her apartment, looking a charming combination of sheepish and apologetic and determined, she hadn’t even hesitated to shoot off a quick text to Alex before willingly following her friend to Earth-1. True, her head had hurt a little because of all the crying the night before and her eyes were still kind of bloodshot but none of that had mattered. Because her friend had needed her.

So, for two days she had fought side by side with the team from STAR Labs, punching and flying and using copious amounts of heat vision to defeat a group of metas that had teamed up to try and take over the planet.

Kara was _tired_.

Stumbling back through the extrapolator and onto Earth-38— _home_ —brought a sense of relief, even as her eyes adjusted enough to recognize that Cisco sent her to the DEO instead of her apartment. With her depleted solar levels and the fact that Kara could literally feel the way her powers were barely there, it was understandable. Expected, even.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t already dreading the lecture she was going to receive.

“Kara!” The voice made something in her unclench, a promise of safety and security and without further thought Kara turned and rushed into Alex’s open arms. Her sister was breathing heavy, her heart pounding in a way that made the Kara wince slightly. “Do you have _any idea_ how worried I've been? How worried all of us have been? You can’t just—”

“Alex,” Kara murmured gently, nuzzling farther into her sister’s arms as a shiver raced down her spine. Why was it so cold in the DEO? “I know I'm in a lot of trouble and I'm really sorry for worrying you, but I need some sleep. And maybe a blanket. Or six.”

Immediately, any trace of anger drained from her sister’s face to make way for worry. Alex pulled away from the hug and ran an observing gaze over the blonde, a hand latching carefully onto Kara’s wrist and tugging her towards the sun room. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Kara shrugged, lying down and getting settled as Alex fiddled with the controls. A few moments later, warm golden light enveloped her in a cocoon of lovely heat, and she sighed. “Barry showed up at my apartment after you left.”

“Of course, he did.” Alex snarked, her expression darkening again as she sat in the chair beside Kara’s bed.

Kara frowned at the rebuke, feeling defensive on her friend’s behalf. “Don’t be like that, Alex. He really needed my help.”

A tense silence followed, and Kara resisted the urge to pout or whine. She knew that her sister was just trying to be a good sister and a good agent, but she was tired. For the last two days she had been fighting metas that were mostly immune to her heat vision, which meant that she’d been forced to get creative with how to stop them and in the process had narrowly managed to avoid solar flaring. She didn’t need this right now. “Okay,” Alex whispered out eventually, her voice having lost most of the heat and accusation. “Okay. What happened, Kar?”

“There were five of them,” Kara started, swallowing against the memories of screaming and panic. It was over, they had won. There hadn’t even been any casualties. “Some rag tag group of metas that banded together and called themselves the Liberators. Said they were going to clean up the world, starting with Central City. They managed to beat Barry because one of the metas was a speedster from the future. He was faster.” Kara shifted, sitting up and tucking her knees under her chin.

“That wasn’t even the worst part. They had this one meta who could manipulate memories. It was weird. If I tried hard enough, I could almost remember how it had actually happened, but if I didn’t…” They had played like a movie in her mind. Over and over and she wanted to make it stop but she _couldn’t._ “It could have been worse. Much worse. But I guess he stuck to recent trauma because the only thing he did was—” An endless cycle of Lena walking out. Walking away. Ending their friendship. Laughing in Kara’s tear stained face. “I lost count of how many times he made me watch her reject me.”

“Kara…” Alex murmured, reaching over to offer a hand. Grateful, Kara took it.

“Cisco ended up saving the day on that one. He had made some kind of neural inhibitor. Apparently, it protected my mind from Recall’s particular type of torture.” The specifics of it had been lost on her, but after thirteen hours straight of Lena’s cold, bitter smile and harsh words, Kara didn’t care much for _specifics_.

“Recall?”

Kara laughed, wiping away the few tears that managed to escape. “They have this weird obsession with naming their metas. Cisco especially. And since Recall’s only real power was to change the way you remembered something…”

“Clever.” Alex allowed, slightly reluctantly and still looking at Kara with a wary expression. Like she was liable to fall apart at any given second.

“I'm okay, Alex.” And she was. Now. Admittingly, right after Recall had been kicked from her memories, Kara lost it for a bit. Caitlin had found her in one of the many bathroom stalls in STAR labs, crouched over a toilet and mid panic attack. They had talked it through, the other woman unfailingly soothing and content to let Kara sob and mutter nonsensical words against her shoulder. “Caitlin found me after, and we talked it out. After Recall wasn’t able to use his abilities to distract us anymore, it was easy. Even with the speedster faster than Barry. Their plan had mostly consisted of Recall messing with our minds and slowing us down. And even though they were somehow mostly immune to my heat vision, it slowed them down enough for the others to cuff them.”

Alex nodded, running a hand through Kara’s hair that immediately made her melt back down onto the sun bed. _Rao_ , she was tired. “Can I finish explaining the specifics later? I think I'm about to fall asleep.” Or she was falling asleep. Between running herself ragged on this Earth and then fighting for two days straight on _another_ Earth, Kara was pretty much drained.

“Of course, Kara. Lights on or lights off?” A hand ran through her hair one last time before dropping away, lips pressing to the middle of her forehead a second later. Kara smiled sleepily.

“Off please,” she answered, curling up and nestling her cheek into the pillow under her head. “Love you, Alex.”

“Love you too, Kara. Get some rest.”

She was gone a moment later and Kara almost immediately drifted to sleep.

* * *

Her patience was something Lena prided herself on.

Chess had taught her that winning sometimes meant playing the long game. It meant bunkering down and sometimes burrowing in to weather out any storms that might occur. She tried her best to apply that philosophy into as many parts of her life as she could—both professional _and_ personal.

When Alex had told her that Kara clearly hadn’t been sleeping and needed more time, a part of her cried out at the idea of waiting to see the blonde. But the rest of her, the reasonable part, had realized that what Kara needed was sleep and what Kara needed was what Lena wanted. It was all about patience, after all.

Psyching herself up took the better part of an hour the next morning, but Lena didn’t let the mild panic deter her as she stopped by Kara’s favorite bakery to get three dozen donuts and the florist a block from the blonde’s apartment to pick up a beautiful bouquet of wild flowers that she had called late last night to rush order.

Armed with Kara’s favorite donuts and flowers, Lena was as ready as she would ever be.

Upon arriving at the blonde’s apartment, she had expected many things. She had expected Kara to be upset. She had expected Kara to be angry. She had expected to get dismissed out of hand. She had expected that Alex was totally off base, and Kara decidedly did _not_ have feelings for the sister of the man who tried his best to murder her cousin. She had even expected that Kara might not answer the door at all!

What she had not expected, however, was for a very pissed off looking Alex Danvers to open the door.

“Alex!” Lena exclaimed, wincing internally when Alex’s expression went from angry to understanding. Well, that was absolutely mortifying. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Wordlessly, Alex opened the door wider and Lena walked inside, taking a moment to set down the pastries and flowers before scanning the regretfully Kara-less apartment. Already, the staticky buzz of adrenaline was wearing off and Lena could feel herself deflating. “Is everything okay?”

“I sure hope so,” the other woman muttered, annoyance clear in her tone, and Lena frowned. Before she had a chance to ask for any sort of clarification or what the hell was going on, Alex slid her phone across the table and Lena felt her heart sink somewhere around her stomach.

_Hey Alex, emergency on Earth-1 that needs SG’s help. Not too sure when I’ll be back. Keep an eye on Lena for me? She has a press conference tomorrow and you know how those go. Try not to worry too much. I love you!_

“That actually got rescheduled,” Lena murmured distractedly, trying to wrap her head around the fact that Kara wasn’t here. She wasn’t in National City; she wasn’t even on this _Earth_. “What are we supposed to do? Is there a way we can contact her?”

“No, there’s no way to contact her. We wait,” Alex answered darkly, predictably. It didn’t stop Lena’s panic in the slightest. “She has a good group of friends over there that can protect her. Doesn’t mean I'm not going to give her an earful the second she gets back though.” Her gaze drifted to the abandoned flowers and donuts, and Alex cleared her throat awkwardly. “Sorry your plans got ruined.”

Lena shrugged, settling herself comfortably in a chair. “It’s okay. My motto lately has been ‘Expect the unexpected’ so this is pretty on par.” Truthfully, she was far more concerned for Kara’s wellbeing than the fate of her own confession. Earth-1 didn’t have kryptonite, but that didn’t mean Kara was necessarily _safe._ Just because they didn’t have kryptonite didn’t mean they hadn’t created some other form of weaponry that could hurt her on their Earth that no one from _this_ Earth had ever seen before because—“We just have to wait, you say?” Her voice came out thick, high with panic and Lena forced herself to take a deep breath.

Alex nodded with a sympathetic look, placing a hand on Lena’s shoulder in a surprising gesture of comfort. “Kara is really strong, she’ll be okay. We just have to hold the fort down until she gets back.”

Hold the fort down. Like the people attacking lately were petty burglars and delinquents, not super powered aliens with super powered alien _guns._

She just had to wait.

Lena was _patient._ It was something she prided herself on.

However, two days after her botched attempt at confessing her feelings Kara still hadn’t returned and Lena was starting to think that patience was overrated.

Jess had started shying away from her the slightest bit in response to being snapped at one too many times and Lena sighed, rubbing her temples. It wasn’t her assistant’s fault that all of this was happening. She hadn’t seen Kara in almost a week and that was starting to take its toll. Lena hadn’t even realized how much she relied on those daily visits until they stopped happening. Hadn’t realized how a smile from Kara improved her overall mood for the day. How a single hug made Lena feel like _she_ could take to the skies and fly herself. Before she could examine those _thoughts_ any further, her phone buzzed, and Lena welcomed the distraction.

_Kara is back. Sleeping right now, but she's okay. ETA 15?_

Lena blinked at the message, rereading it three times before the words sank in through the fog of her mind and she shot out of her chair, rushing out of the office. Kara was back. She was _back_. She was back and Alex apparently knew her well enough to know that the rest of today and probably tomorrow was a forfeit because nothing mattered more to Lena than Kara Danvers—not even L Corp. “Jess, I need you to clear my schedule for the rest of today and tomorrow. Just move as much as you can to Friday, and I’ll deal with the investors on Monday.”

To her credit, Jess didn’t so much as blink before writing a quick note on the legal pad next to her keyboard. “Of course, Miss Luthor. Anything else?”

“Yes actually,” at Jess’ expectant look, Lena sighed softly. “I'm really sorry for my behavior these last few days. I was stressed out, but that is not something you should have to deal with. You are a wonderful assistant Jess, and I don’t tell you that nearly enough.”

Clearly caught off guard, Jess faltered for a second before sitting up a bit straighter. “Thank you, Miss Luthor. That means more to me than you know.”

Lena nodded, giving her assistant one last warm smile before she rushed out of the building, making her way to the car she hardly ever got to use. Driving herself was something she had fallen out of practice with but given the fact that the DEO was supposed to be a secret military operations base, she couldn’t very well have Sebastian drive her there. And her only other option would have been waiting until Kara got home, which was not actually an option at all.

The drive itself wasn’t too bad, thirteen minuets spent with her shaky hands clutching the wheel as she quietly counted out her breaths in an attempt to stay calm. By the time she had managed to park her car and run into the building, that anxiety had turned into anticipation, the kind that sent shivers down her spine. Passing through the security checkpoint, Lena turned and managed to just narrowly avoid running into a very unamused Alex Danvers. “Agent Danvers, hello. Nice to see you.”

“You know, most of the time when someone sends an ‘ _ETA 15?_ ’, they kind of expect a response. Not just for the recipient to show up fourteen and a half minuets later.” Arms crossed; eyes narrowed slightly... yes, unamused was definitely the best word to describe Alex right now. Despite that, there was a lightness in her gaze, a relief that Lena could feel echoes of in herself.

She risked a shrug, lips curling up in a soft smirk. “Given my known... _devotion_ to your sister, I figured it was a rhetorical question.”

As expected, Alex winced in disgust. “Okay new rule, no talking about your _anything_ for my sister. Ever again. Seriously, I don’t know how the hell I ended up right in the middle of Kara’s romance drama, but it is not a place I ever want to be again. The two of you are exhausting.”

Lena smiled, fingers twitching and twisting together nervously. From where they were standing, she could just barely made out the brightness of the sun room. Where Kara was. “How is she doing? Really?”

“Alright,” Alex responded, following Lena’s line of sight with a suddenly serious expression. “They had a meta, one that could manipulate memories apparently. Force them into something different than they had been, something worse.”

The possibilities were endless, and Lena felt herself suck in a startled breath. “Krypton?” Though truthfully, she wasn’t sure how they could’ve made that one any worse. Forcing Kara to relive the moment she lost her entire world would’ve been awful enough and suddenly Earth-1 was too far away. Too inaccessible. The thought of someone hurting Kara for their own gain made something dark in Lena rise, something mean and twisted and entirely _Luthor._

But Alex shook her head with an unreadable expression on her face, “Not quite.”

It took far longer than it should have for Lena to realize what she meant, and immediately the sick feeling of guilt that had twisted in her stomach for days made itself known again. “Oh.” What else could she say? Apparently this meta had not only hurt Kara, but it had hurt Kara using something _Lena_ had done.

“I didn’t tell you because I want you to feel bad or beat yourself up, Lena. I told you because you're going to need to be gentle. I don’t know what Recall made her see exactly, but I do know that she's going to need you. Maybe even more than she needs me right now.” Alex’s voice was remarkably relaxed, accusation free. The words were surprising, that last part especially, but entirely truthful. There would be time for her to feel guilty later, right now Kara needed her and that always took precedence.

After giving Alex a sincere _thank you_ , Lena made her way out from the hub of the DEO and quickly headed towards Kara.

* * *

There were fingers running through her hair.

It was an absolutely incredible way to wake up and Kara hoped the sound she let out properly expressed her gratitude. The strokes faltered, but at Kara’s plaintive whine they immediately started up again, this time dipping down to scratch at her scalp before working their way back up and _Rao_ this was _wonderful._

Kara shamelessly basked in the gentle ministration for a few more blissful minutes before reluctantly opening her eyes and promptly stiffening in shock. It had only been six days since she had last seen Lena, but after the terrible way they had left things and Recall’s special brand of hell, it felt like a lifetime since she had gazed into warm green eyes. The sight of them competed with memories— _fake memories—_ of a sneering Lena with her lips pursed in disgust.

_What, like you're in love with me? Come now Kara, don’t be ridiculous. You’ve seen the significance of people I date, yes?_

“Hey.” That one word, with all the tenderness and love in the world infused in it, was enough to snap her out of it. Lena smiled, gently. “How are you feeling?”

_Truthfully, what did you expect to happen? We’d live happily ever after, maybe like one of your Disney movies?_

“Fine,” Kara lied, carefully pushing Lena’s hand away and sitting up. She had lost the upper hand a that evening in the CEO’s office, but that didn’t mean Kara literally had to lie down while Lena finished breaking her heart. “Kind of tired, still. But I think my powers are coming back.” Not fast enough. Not _nearly_ fast enough considering the fact that she wanted nothing more than to fly away from whatever conversation was about to happen.

Lena nodded in understanding, shifting her hand down to grab at one of Kara’s, smoothly entangling their fingers. “That’s good.” And because apparently Kara wasn’t confused enough, Lena lifted their joined hands to her lips and placed a soft kiss on the back on her hand.

Kara blinked. “What the hell is going on? I mean, you ignored me for _days._ And I get it! I understand that I shouldn’t have dropped all of that on you the way I did and I'm sorry for that, okay? But this is—you don’t get to play with my emotions like this just because you're upset with me! That’s cruel, Lena. That’s _cruel_ and you—” A single finger against her lips halted Kara’s rambling and she glared pointedly at the digit. As best she could, at least. Which basically meant that she crossed her eyes and frowned but Kara thought she got her point across.

“Six days ago, I made a mistake. A big mistake that I've been feeling incredibly guilty over because I hurt you—”

_It would just hurt, Kara. You and I could never work, not like that._

Kara scowled.

“—which I didn’t mean to do. I promise you Kara, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.” Lena’s eyes filled rapidly with tears and despite herself, Kara felt her frustration waver. Another kiss was placed to the back of her hand, but this time Lena kept their hands there. “I was jealous. I was so incredibly jealous, and I know that’s not an excuse but that’s why I did what I did.”

Well, that made exactly no sense. “Jealous of _what_ , Lena?”

Instead of answering though, Lena laughed. The sound made Kara flinch, made her walls start to slam back up because this was exactly what she—

“I’m in love with you, Kara Zor-El.” She felt the words as much as she heard them, considering the fact that Lena still had their hands pressed against her lips. “I'm so incredibly in love with you and I got jealous, so I reacted terribly. _Abysmally,_ even.” Lena smiled softly like she had told a joke and Kara felt something inside of her snap.

“If you're so in love with me, then why in Rao’s name would you—”

“I didn’t know you were talking about me.” The slight humor from her voice was gone, and now Lena just sounded vulnerable. Scared. “I swear Kara I didn’t know. If I had—if I had _known…_ Kara I'm _so_ in love with you. Everything about you is perfect to me. If I had known that you had feelings for me, that you felt the same way, I would’ve asked you out such a long time ago.” Lena rose to her feet in a sort of graceless stumble that Kara had never seen from her before. “I messed up. I _fucked up._ Please, give me another chance? I promise to treat you the way you deserve to be treated. To adore you the way you deserve to be adored. To _love_ you the way you deserve to be loved.”

There was far too much there to unpack but Kara did her absolute best. Lena loved her. Lena was in love with her. Romantic love, the kind of love that had colored their interactions in vibrant pinks and reds for Kara for _years._ “I can’t remember the last time I wanted something that wasn’t you.” The confession slipped from her lips with very little thought and before Kara could even wonder if it was too much, Lena closed the slight distance between them with a beaming smile and every other thought was lost to the press of their lips. 


End file.
